A mountain lion attacked and killed a family's beloved poodle outside their home in Glendale on Monday evening, raising fears that the predator might return.

"He was a gentleman of a dog," Erinn Brown said of her standard poodle named Wiley. She watched in horror as the mountain lion carried the dog's body.

"It was really hard to see somebody that's really a part of your family ... have to be killed in such a gruesome way," Brown said in an interview Wednesday.

She said everything had seemed normal when she opened a sliding-glass door and let Wiley out.

But after a few moments "it was just silent outside," Brown recalled. "I actually noted to myself that the dog wasn't barking."

She soon made a gruesome discovery. "Then I saw that our dog was hanging limp from the top of the fence," Brown said. The mountain lion then jumped over the fence and fled, leaving behind bloody footprints in its path.

"It looked the size of a tiger," Brown said. "It was enormous."

She showed Wiley's collar to a reporter, pointing out where the mountain lion had bitten into it.

The Browns are concerned about their five young children, whose swing set stands near the site of the attack.

"I've told them they just can't go outside until mom and dad can figure out a way to make sure that they're safe," Erinn Brown said.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said the agency plans to contact the Brown family on Thursday.

The department noted that in the past 30 years, there have only been 16 documented instances of mountain lions attacking people in the state. Each of those incidents occurred in national parks or animal preserves.